Just when you think it's over...

...it comes back and bites you in the butt. At least, that's the way it feels.

As you may have noticed, my recent posts have been about all sorts of 'other' things - nothing too personal. The first reason behind that is that I'm struggling to share how I feel, which is a pretty weird feeling for me. I guess that it stems from having been so busy recently and not having the time to think through how I feel. The second reason is that even when I've had time to figure out how I feel, I simply haven't had the time to sit down and write about it. (Plus I figured that maybe you'd all like a break from what must, at times, feel like the incessantly depressing posts I've been writing!)

Over the past few weeks, I've suddenly become (figuratively) surrounded by people having babies or announcing they're pregnant. I can honestly say this never used to be a problem for me. I know that for many women who lose a baby late term or through neo-natal death (or for women struggling to conceive) being around others with newborns or who are pregnant is like sticking a red-hot poker in your eye. I never had that. Maybe that's unique, but it really didn't bother me. I was able to compartmentalise what I was feeling about Zoe from the joy I felt for others in their gift of new life. I could hold babies, talk about babies, look at baby pictures, "gossip" about babies - none of it affected me.

However, that is no longer the case. In retrospect I've felt myself changing in this regard for several months now, with each new birth announcement feeling more and more like a dagger to the heart, but it all came to a head when a member of my family emailed to say she was pregnant. (I'm not allowed to name names because she doesn't want the rest of the family to know, which I understand, but it's a close family member.) Reading her email, I felt like I'd been hit in the stomach. That has never happened to me before, and I don't like the way I felt or the things I immediately thought.

Of course I'm thrilled for her, but I don't feel thrilled - I feel gutted. I don't wish any harm on her or her baby, but I wish she wasn't pregnant. I want to dance for joy and celebrate with her, but I also want to punch her. And feeling that way, wishing that, makes me feel as guilty as hell. I just keep thinking that it's not even that she's pregnant that I have the issue with. It's that she's pregnant and I'm not.

I have friends who have either been trying (unsuccessfully, even with IVF), or who are physically incapable of having kids (e.g. already had a hysterectomy), or who don't have a partner so won't have kids (unless they go to a sperm bank). I have one child. I should be grateful. I should be satisfied. I should be happy. But I'm not.

It's so easy to stand alongside someone who really wants a child (as I confess I have, on occasion, done) and soliloquise about stuff - that God will provide, that you're better off without kids, that you must just have faith and it will eventually happen - or even to say 'that sucks'; but BEING there is a completely different kettle of fish. Not being pregnant is killing me.

As I said to my grief counsellor this week: I expected this reaction back in March when Zoe died. Then I expected to struggle with wanting a baby, because that's what was supposed to happen. You get pregnant, you give birth, you get a baby. Psychologically and physically, I was prepared for having a baby. So not having one - well, I anticipated having issues with others who did have one. But I never did.

And I've been feeling a hang of a lot better recently. While my grief has been present, it's been much more of a background thing. I thought I was starting to reach the point where I could live around this hole in my life, where I could really start to put my life back together - start going back to church, start getting involved in ministry again.

I did not expect that, 9 months on, this would hit me now. I wasn't prepared for that. And I don't know how to handle this. I know that the first Christmas without your loved one is tough, so I'm sure that has something to do with it, and I'm sure that I will get through this. I just don't know what to do with my feelings right now. And when I get like that, I bottle, which is the very thing I should NOT be doing.

Take today - I had a MASSIVE temper tantrum at Janel today because she wouldn't eat her food. Mostly it was because she was simply being defiant (how I HATE these terrible two's of pushing boundaries and establishing her sense of identity) - and that winds me up like nothing on earth. But I know I also over-reacted because my emotional stress is high. Because I'm not coping with these feelings, they boil over into things they shouldn't. And I hate that. I made her cry this afternoon, and not just because she was being naughty, but because I was cross about not being pregnant - and that's really not fair on her. (I did apologise to her afterwards, and she did sulk for a while - just to show me how much I had hurt her - but we made up and now we're best friends again. Thank God little ones forgive and forget so quickly!)

I know I've said it before, but I really hate going through this grieving stuff. It's hard work. It sucks the life out of you. And just when you think it's over... !